Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The main ingredients of an environmental ethic are caring
about the planet and all of its inhabitants, allowing unselfish-
ness to control the immediate self-interest that harms others,
and living each day so as to leave the lightest possible foot-
prints on the planet.
R
OBERT
C
AHN
How can we shift to more environmentally
sustainable economies over the next few decades?
■
How is environmental policy formulated in the
United States?
■
What are some guidelines for making environmen-
tal policy? How can people affect such decisions?
■
This chapter examines the basic principles underlying
environmental economics and environmental politics
and looks at three environmental worldviews that
guide human behavior toward the environment. It ad-
dresses the following questions:
What are three major environmental worldviews?
■
How can we live more sustainably?
■
18-1 ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
AND SUSTAINABILITY
How do neoclassical and ecological economists
differ in their view of the earth's economic
systems?
■
Economic Resources
An economic system produces goods and services by
using natural, human, and manufactured resources.
An
economic system
is a social institution through
which goods and services are produced, distributed,
and consumed to satisfy people's needs and unlimited
wants in the most efficient possible way. In a
market-
based economic system,
buyers (demanders) and sellers
(suppliers) interact in
markets
to make economic deci-
sions about which goods and services are produced,
distributed, and consumed.
Three types of resources are used to produce
goods and services (Figure 18-2, p. 414).
Natural re-
sources,
or
natural capital,
includes the goods and ser-
vices produced by the earth's natural processes, which
support all economies and all life. (See Figure 1-3, p. 7,
and the Guest Essay on natural capital by Paul
Hawken on the website for this chapter.)
Human re-
sources,
or
human capital,
includes people's physical
and mental talents that provide labor, innovation, cul-
ture, and organization.
Manufactured resources,
or
manufactured capital,
includes items such as machin-
ery, equipment, and factories made from natural re-
sources with the help of human resources.
How can we monitor environmental progress?
■
What economic tools can we use to shift to full-cost
pricing?
■
How does poverty reduce environmental quality,
and how can we reduce poverty?
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KEY IDEAS
■
Economists differ in their views about the impor-
tance of natural capital and the long-term sustainabil-
ity of economic growth.
■
Environmentalists and many economists call for
prices of goods and services to include indirect envi-
ronmental, health, and other harmful costs associated
with their production and use. They suggest removing
environmentally harmful government subsidies and
tax breaks and shifting taxes from wages and profits to
pollution and waste.
■
Sharply cutting poverty can improve environmental
quality and human health.
■
To shift to more environmentally sustainable
economies, we can design them to use the four prin-
ciples of sustainability found in nature.
Neoclassical, Environmental,
and Ecological Economists
Economists differ in their opinion of the importance
of natural capital and the long-term sustainability
of economic growth.
Neoclassical economists
such as Milton Friedman and
Robert Samuelson view natural resources as important
but not vital because of our ability to find substitutes
for scarce resources and ecosystem services. They also
contend that continuing economic growth is necessary,
desirable, and essentially unlimited.
Ecological economists
such as Herman Daly and
Robert Costanza view economic systems as subsystems
■
Most improvements in environmental quality result
from millions of citizens putting pressure on elected of-
ficials and individuals developing innovative solutions
to environmental problems.
■
Planetary management, stewardship, and earth
wisdom are three major environmental worldviews
■
The message of environmentalism is not gloom
and doom, fear, and catastrophe, but rather hope,
a positive vision of the future, and a call for responsi-
bility in dealing with the environmental challenges
we face.
